Emil Konopinski, mentor to Bahcall

I enjoyed reading the obituary of my friend John Bahcall (Physics Today, July 2006, page 63). Unfortunately, the brief note that he was a postdoctoral fellow at Indiana University did not mention Emil Konopinski's contribution to John's education. I think it is fair to say that it was Konopinski who taught John the fine points of neutrino theory, the area in which John made his greatest contributions. I can still remember discussions John and I had about his vision of the use of neutrinos for astronomical purposes, in which I heatedly denied the possibility of any such thing as neutrino astronomy. Well—he was right, and I was shortsighted. (I don't recall what Konopinski's position on this was.)